Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto

A conscious engagement with the process of weaving
By Ho See Wah

Traditional Javanese handloom weaving process. Image courtesy of Art Agenda, JKT.

Philosophical ruminations on the nature of existence underpins the work of Indonesian artist Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto (b. 1995). The artist has worked with various media, though the art of weaving holds a prominent spot in his oeuvre. Through the act and materiality of creating, where lines of thread come together through multiple entanglements, Hartanto ponders its confluences with the nature of being and becoming. 

Apart from his artistic practice, his preoccupation with this medium takes on other configurations. Hartanto had previously taken on the role of an apprentice with a Javanese master weaver in East Java. He is now also a textile craft school developer and ethnographer at Yayasan Rumah SukkhaCitta, Java, which provides educational and financial support to Indonesian artisans. The artist’s first solo exhibition, ‘Interwoven: A Weaver's Recollection of Time’ is currently on show at Art Agenda, JKT. 

Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto, 'Kain Duka IV', 2017, handwoven ikat dyed cotton warp. Image courtesy of the Art Agenda, JKT.

While Hartanto’s overarching concerns tend toward a personal and universal timelessness, his work also engages with a more contextual decolonising praxis. Through the dominant Eurocentric worldview, fine art takes on specific characteristics which excludes and stereotypes a myriad of other forms, such as considering weaving as a folksy craft. Such attitudes and structures are increasingly challenged, and Hartanto is a part of this wave. In his own capacity, the artist imbues his act of creating with a ritualistic intentionality so as to bring his own meaning-making to the forefront. Not merely craft, the process of weaving becomes an active interlocutor in spinning new ontologies within the realm of contemporary art, which allows for “such agency of reclamation and exploration to exist”, as the artist puts it.

‘Interwoven: A Weaver's Recollection of Time’, Art Agenda, JKT, exhibition installation view (detail). Image courtesy of Art Agenda, JKT.

Click here to read our conversation with Alexander Sebastianus Hartanto, where he elaborates on the ritualistic aspect of his practice, the decolonising aspects of his work, and weaving as a metaphorical device for the human condition.